


Bathrobe Wars

by kinetikatrue



Category: due South
Genre: Community: 3daychallenge, Gen, International Fuzzy Bathrobe Day Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-13
Updated: 2007-03-13
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray's not lying - though Fraser seems awfully sure of it - so what <i>is</i> going on with Ray's bathrobe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bathrobe Wars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://3daychallenge.livejournal.com/profile)[**3daychallenge**](http://3daychallenge.livejournal.com/)'s [International Fuzzy Bathrobe Day Challenge](http://community.livejournal.com/3daychallenge/1741.html). And it's entirely [](http://fairestcat.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://fairestcat.livejournal.com/)**fairestcat** 's fault, as we were discussing said challenge and the kitten was making a nuisance of himself. So she suggested we ship him to Tuktuyuktuk. Which we didn't, obviously, because can you imagine the postage?
> 
> I sent him to Chicago, instead, to adopt Fraser and RayK. And got this story out of it. Which she betaed, as she ought, considering it was All Her Fault (though she says a share of the blame devolves to [](http://commodorified.livejournal.com/profile)[**commodorified**](http://commodorified.livejournal.com/)) - and she's most awesome in general. 8) Any remaining mistakes are mine, etc.

The whole thing probably actually starts some time shortly after the kitten adopts them, but Ray isn’t looking for signs that anything’s going on then, so he can’t be sure. The first clue he actually identifies later is when Fraser says, in the middle of a mutual laundry-sorting session (which will be followed by mutual laundry-washing-drying-folding-and-putting-away sessions), “Ray, I wish you would remember to hang up your bathrobe after you’ve worn it.”

Which is, of course, something he’s completely within his rights to tell Ray, given it’s his job to keep the bathroom all clean and sparkling and stuff. Just like it’s completely within Ray’s rights to complain when Fraser uses up the peanut butter feeding the birds and doesn’t tell him. Except for the fact that Ray always hangs up his bathrobe after he uses it.

Which is what he tells Fraser. And Fraser sighs and looks put upon, but doesn’t actually contradict him. And then the kitten pounces the laundry pile and tries to climb Fraser like a tree, trailing one of his pairs of stiff white boxers, and everything kind of degenerates from there.

That’s just life as usual, though. And things go on like that for the next few weeks. Sure, Fraser gets gradually pissier and pissier about something he won’t talk to Ray about. But that’s just part of life-with-Fraser and Ray can roll with it until it either blows over or reaches a point where Ray just can’t.

Ray reaches the ‘just can’t’ stage of things sooner than he maybe would’ve expected. Except, y’know, not really, when he thinks about it: Fraser keeps refusing to give and Ray’s had a cold for a week and he’s just, well, sick of it all. He snaps in the middle of adding the peanut butter to a batch of spicy peanut sauce the cookbook promised was ‘guaranteed to clear out your sinuses’ because Fraser’s sitting quietly in the living room, not doing anything, and that is just it.

“What?” He growls, pointing his wooden spoon at Fraser.

And Fraser is polite – well, until it gets to punching, but they’ve both promised to work problems out before they get that bad – so he just says, “Ah, to what are you referring, Ray?”

“What is this bug you’ve gotten up your ass? What have I done to get your shorts in a knot? What? ‘Cos, y’know, I can’t fix it unless you tell me.” And Ray’s going to go in for some more dramatic spoon-pointing, except he notices that the peanut-butter is threatening to fall off and he still wants the stupid spicy peanut sauce to make his nose start working. So he makes ‘just a second’ motions in Fraser’s direction, instead, and turns back to the stove and glops the peanut butter into the saucepan. And then he turns back to Fraser and makes a grand sort of ‘continue’ gesture.

And all Fraser’s got to say for himself is, “Well, Ray, I do not like to impugn your honesty, but if you continue to willfully claim to hang up your bathrobe and in actuality do precisely the opposite, I don’t see how I will have any choice in the matter.”

And if Ray had thought he’d had it before, well, he knows he’s had it now, because this is what Fraser’s been stewing about for weeks? This? That is unbelievable. “Impugn my honesty, Fraser? Why don’t you just say you’re going to ‘call me a liar’, ‘cos that’s about what you’re planning to do. And that is so stupid it’s almost funny. Because. I. Haven’t. Been. Lying.”

“Well, you haven’t been picking up your robe.” Fraser stubborns right back, glaring.

So Ray glares right back at Fraser and reaches behind himself to turn off the stove and stomps off to his room. He really has had it for tonight, and even if the spicy peanut sauce did help his nose, he still wouldn’t actually feel better at his point.

Ray had thought he’d seen the last of fights like this once his parents had left town and Stella divorced him, but they seem to be part of the territory with Fraser. His mother always told him never to go bed angry, but she was talking about him and Stella, and Fraser definitely isn’t a girl and Ray’d bet he goes to bed angry all the time, besides. Not that Ray wants him to go to bed angry, any more than he wants to go to bed angry, himself. But sometimes life just works that way, and, anyway, things occasionally look better in the morning, or so people say. Not that Ray’s counting on the looking better part, either, or anything. But he knows he can’t talk to Fraser right now, so that’s all he’s got to go on.

Ray wakes up briefly (as always) when Fraser goes in to work the next morning and for real when his alarm goes off an hour later. Which is when he discovers that the cold has sprouted a fever and an entire grumbling chorus of achy things overnight – and is therefore probably now the flu. He takes his temperature, calls Frannie to tell her he won’t be in, makes a cup of tea (which is totally all Fraser’s stupid fault), realizes he still ought to let Fraser know they won’t be liaising today, makes that phone-call (and leaves a message with Turnbull). He sees Dief sprawled across the couch, afterwards, and figures out, belatedly, that Fraser probably already knew. Then he goes back to bed.

He dozes, dreams something involving a team of sled-kangaroos winning the Iditarod, wakes up again. The clock radio tells him it’s been an hour, maybe an-hour-and-a-half, which he guesses is probably right. He never sees his room lit quite this way, weekdays or weekends. It’s nice, even if the room’s a bit of a mess.

His bathrobe’s lying on the floor. And Ray doesn’t remember leaving it there, but he’s been dreaming sled-kangaroos, and that doesn’t exactly give him much confidence in the state of his brain. Anyway, he’ll pick it up later, because he never leaves his bathrobe lying around, but right now he’s just going to sleep some more.

Sleep’s just about the best thing ever is all Ray can think for a moment the next time he wakes up. He’s not sure whether it beats out sex, since he hasn’t exactly been having any recently, but he’s just had some truly spectacular, possibly even mind-blowing sleep and probably will again (possibly even today), so it’s entirely possible. So, yeah, sleep equals awesome, even if it comes with tap-dancing polar bears.

The light in the room’s changed again, but this time it’s familiar, a late-morning look he knows from sleeping late the occasional precious, free weekend. It slants in through the half-open blinds and over the side of the chair by the window where the kitten, Trudeau, is curled up, asleep, one paw flung over his eyes. It cross-hatches the rag rug by the bed, stripes the pile of blankets covering Ray, just reaches to touch his bathrobe, lying in the doorway.

Which is not where it was before, Ray’s pretty sure. Not even close. The bedroom door does not equal the bathroom door and only one of those is near the foot of the bed. And even Ray isn’t so out of it that if he didn’t already know he’d need more than one guess as to which is which.

It would be a great place to keep watch from, though, and the bathrobe is all mounded up like it’s maybe been used as a nest. So even if there isn’t any sign of Dief at the moment and the half-wolf doesn’t exactly act like one most of the time, well, anything’s possible.

Ray slides into sleep between one thought and the next and he slides back out again just as smoothly, leaving behind a dream in which Fraser lectured Diefenbaker on the proper technique to be used in making chocolate mousse. Which Ray gets is a very important subject, but isn’t exactly sure why it should matter to Dief.

He’s definitely hungry, now, though, and he needs to pee. So he gets up and takes care of business in the bathroom, then puts on a pair of relatively clean sweatpants and wanders out to the kitchen to heat a can of soup. Which is when the doorbell rings.

Ray answers it to find Sandor standing there holding a white paper deli bag. He blinks, takes the bag from Sandor, looks inside – and discovers steaming hot chicken soup from the good deli near the consulate. Which is exactly the thing he needs most at the moment, yes, but not something he actually expected to get.

He must look as confused as he feels, since Sandor explains that Corporal Fraser called and asked whether he’d consider making an extra delivery if he were going to be in the area – and of course he’d pay him for his trouble, since Ray is an absolute bear when hes sick. Ray’s not feeling like much of a bear at the moment, though he’d defend the container of chicken soup against all comers, and he thinks Fraser takes being sick much worse than Ray ever has. But the man did arrange to get chicken soup delivered by Ray’s snitch-cum-pizza-delivery-boy so he doesn’t complain, just accepts the apology for what is is, digs through the pockets of the jackets hanging by the door and comes up with something resembling a tip, then sends Sandor on his way and heads for the couch and the prospect of a TV table and the soup and some mediocre mid-day sports.

It all delivers exactly as promised, and about halfway through the soup and some European-league soccer sleep delivers again, as well.

He wakes from a dream in which Fraser and Turnbull and Thatcher were trying to curl with an object that looked a lot like a soccer ball. Dief is keeping the foot of the couch, and, by extension, his feet warm. Also, there’s soup left. He could go heat it up.

But that’s his bathrobe. Creeping towards the couch. If his bathrobe were alive, that would explain a whole lot of things. Though he wouldn’t be able to wear it anymore. Because, y’know, it might eat him or something.

But still: his bathrobe, inching closer and closer. And getting caught on the leg of the armchair. And sliding aside to reveal one small black-and-white-furred leg. It’s Trudeau. Of course.

Ray changes over to the Discovery Channel, which is showing a special on manatees. He wants to know what Trudeau is up to (though he thinks he might have some idea) and he doesn’t want the kitten to feel self-conscious.

Trudeau doesn’t seem to have noticed Ray looking, though. He rearranges himself underneath the bathrobe and goes back to inching his way towards the couch. Ray watches out of the corner of his eye; seeing Trudeau in action should be more than worth the wait.

When the combination of kitten and bathrobe comes to a stop and gathers in on itself, Ray congratulates himself on guessing right. And when it springs off the ground and lands on top of Diefenbaker he laughs, because attack by kitten-bathrobe monster is a damn funny sight.

Except that then there’s a completely-uncoordinated ball of bathrobe and kitten and half-wolf flailing around at Ray’s feet. Which is something Ray isn’t exactly keen on. He’s about to do something about it, when the whole mess tumbles right off the couch and goes rolling across the floor.

Dief slinks off to the fire escape, afterwards, all wounded dignity and hurt wolf-pride. Trudeau drags Ray’s bathrobe back into the bathroom and comes back to the couch to take Dief’s place, looking pleased with himself. And Ray grins, because what with the soup apology and the rest, Ray’s actually looking forward to Fraser asking him how his day was.


End file.
